HUMAN | YUWIN [ ✓ ]

TWENTY-THREE | ONE LAST FIGHT

when sicheng wakes up early in the morning, he can't force himself to go back to sleep. the idea is unappealing to him at the moment when there's so much nervousness churning around in his stomach.

the day was here. their escape day had finally came.

his healing wound felt sore to the touch when his hand just barely brushes over where the bandages were, wincing as he quickly retracted his hand away. the pain seemed to worsen whenever he felt nervous over the past few days since he made the plan. he glances over at yuta's sleeping form beside him and he wishes he could be like him at the moment.

asleep, peaceful, his mind blank enough so he's got kept awake with worry. sicheng wants to be like yuta, but he can't. there were so many things that could go wrong today. that's all he can think about, each thought bringing up a new possibility. at this moment, sicheng doubts anything can go right as his mind has been so poisoned with doubt.

he turns fully to face yuta, seeing his face, his eyes closed and his nose just barely scrunched up. sicheng pulls yuta close to him again, feeling his warmth against him. it's calming, in a way, and his bad thoughts seem to start melting away. yuta just has that power, whether he knows that or not. sicheng thinks he probably does, especially with all the hugs he likes to give.

as his heart swells, sicheng thinks back to when yuta hugged him, exclaiming that they are better than getting hurt. in all fairness, he's not wrong. sicheng just wanted yuta to stop being so soft on him when it came to fighting, but his opinion quickly changed the more he hung around him and eventually fell for him. yuta just isn't the one for violence and that's just a part of him. a part of him gibeom despises.

gibeom doesn't understand that. he never will.

sicheng is finally able to settle into sleep again, a lot more peaceful than before. when a few more hours pass, he's been shaken awake by yuta, along with the call of his nickname. "chengie, get up!"

when he finally wakes up and his brain comes to its sense, he realises there's only mere hours before they escape. they straight up just leave this place behind forever and never turn back. but now sicheng remembers they never decided on where to go. would they stay in south korea or leave the country entirely to avoid gibeom?

maybe china, his home country. he doesn't have the best recent memories from there, but it's not like sicheng is running right back to his parents or anything. but he's only thinking about him and yuta. johnny and ten can do whatever they desire. a part of him doubts they'll follow them anyways once they're away.

"we should get breakfast," yuta says through a yawn. "the last thing i'll eat here."

sicheng halfway smiles. "heh. i probably won't eat."

"you've been doing so good," yuta replies sternly. "i know dr. lim is most likely full of shit too, but he's right about you eating more. skipping every single meal every day isn't healthy, cheng."

sicheng does feel his hungry stomach rumble, strangely enough. it finally realised recently that it needs to eat, as it seems. or, sicheng could easily just have convinced himself he wasn't hungry to the point it didn't rumble anymore. but that makes no — never mind. "fine," he mumbles and yuta grins.

when they walk into the break room holding hands, ten and johnny are already there. johnny was poking at his breakfast of cereal, dipping the spoon in only to pull it back out, watching the milk drip off and the drenched cereal slowly slide off of the metal. ten, on the other hand, was stone-faced and there wasn't a single meal in front of him. when yuta lets go of sicheng's hand to get their bowls of cereal, sicheng sits down across from his other two teammates.